Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, November 03, 2005 at 1:38PM :
In Reply to: Re: head gasket leak - any luck with liquid sealer posted by mannyc on Thursday, November 03, 2005 at 11:42AM :
On pretty much every gasketed surface, one could say that sealer is masking a problem, but if it masks it until the parts have to be separated again for some other reason, isn't that good enough? Remember, he said it was water, not cylinder pressure, that was leaking, and we use sealer on all our water pump, thermostat, etc gaskets all the time.
Also, in the "good old days" head gaskets had copper on both sides, and had copper inserts around every hole, not just the cylinders. Now most of them are punched out of some fancy fibrous material, with metal inserts only around the cylinders. Fiber is simply never totally waterproof without sealer of some sort. Even the manual for my 40-year old John Deere said to put aluminum paint around a few key places on the head gasket. That was probably before "copper coat"